Blue Is the Warmest Color: Drama controversial but absorbing

Friday

Nov 15, 2013 at 12:01 AMNov 15, 2013 at 12:15 PM

Since it won the grand prize in May at the Cannes (France) Film Festival from a jury headed by Steven Spielberg, the French drama Blue Is the Warmest Color has been drawn rave reviews and controversy in fairly equal measure. The latter has arisen from the graphic depictions of lesbian sex - in particular an exhaustively intense seven-minute scene that some critics and feminists think blurs the line between art and pornography.

Melissa Starker, For The Columbus Dispatch

Since it won the grand prize in May at the Cannes (France) Film Festival from a jury headed by Steven Spielberg, the French drama Blue Is the Warmest Color has been drawn rave reviews and controversy in fairly equal measure.

The latter has arisen from the graphic depictions of lesbian sex — in particular an exhaustively intense seven-minute scene that some critics and feminists think blurs the line between art and pornography.

But the images of bared skin, grasping hands and ecstatic faces aren’t as noteworthy as the sense of ordinariness that predominates. This is a heartfelt coming-of-age portrait with a refreshingly matter-of-fact view of same-sex attraction and an unhurried, quietly observational approach much rarer in modern cinema than boundary-pushing sexual encounters.

A bright student at a provincial French high school, Adele (Adele Exarchopoulos) has a strong appetite for food, literature and languages. She is also developing a hunger for physical contact, which she explores with an interested boy at school.

But a glance shared on the street with a blue-haired art student named Emma (Lea Seydoux) stays in Adele’s mind and colors her dreams. An ensuing encounter between them gives birth to a long, passionate relationship. Adele becomes Emma’s muse, but the role is uncomfortable for her, especially when Adele is thrust into Emma’s highly cultured and opinionated social circle.

Director and co-writer Abdellatif Kechiche uses a hand-held camera and tight framing to follow Adele’s growth from an awkward teen who is confused by her feelings for the same sex to a young woman who is self-aware, if not yet self-possessed.

Upon viewing the film, one understands why the Cannes prize was awarded jointly to Kechiche and the two co-stars. Exarchopoulos and Seydoux lend exceptional commitment and bravery to their roles. In particular, Exarchopoulos creates a fully fleshed character of endearing tics, believable imperfections and sympathetic insecurities.

The original French title of the film is The Life of Adele: Chapters 1 and 2, which hints that viewers might see more of Adele’s relatively unremarkable yet completely absorbing life in the future. One can only hope.